Sold for: $481,250

PROVENANCE
Theo Waddington Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Marc Mayer and Sarah Stanners, Jack Bush, National Gallery of Canada, 2014, page 31

EXHIBITED
Theo Waddington Gallery, Montreal, Jack Bush: Recent Paintings, 1976

Once Jack Bush resigned from being a commercial artist in 1968, his self-confidence seemed to grow along with his achievements. The musically inspired works he created between 1974 and 1977, such as our Green Sleeves and Salmon Concerto, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, have a playfulness and freedom not seen in previous works. During these years, an exhibition of Bush’s work opened the new Contemporary wing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (a major coup for a Canadian artist) and he had a traveling retrospective, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario. In addition to being lyrically titled, Green Sleeves can also be categorized as part of the Strokes series of works, wherein both the background and the shapes floating above are gestural and lively, in contrast to the mottled or opaque backgrounds and hard-edged lines seen in previous works. The bands of bright colour that sit atop this canvas feel free and expressive, and as Marc Mayer writes: “The strokes are untethered but rhythmically synchronized as they merrily animate the picture plane.”

This work will be included in Sarah Stanners's forthcoming Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars